addressed himself to Davies: "What do you think of Garrick! He has refused me an order for the play for Miss Williams, because he knows the house will be full, and that an order would be worth three shillings." Eager to take any opening to get into conversation with him, I ventured to say, Oh, sir, I cannot think Mr Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you." "Sir," said he, with a stern look, "I have known David Garrick longer than you have done, and I know no right you have to talk to me on the subject."-BoSWELL.

A DISTINCTION.-A person tried for high treason, as the jury were about to leave the bar, requested them to consider a statute which he thought made very much for him. "Sirrah," cried out one of the judges, "I know that statute better than you do." The prisoner coolly replied, "I make no doubt, sir, but that you do know it better than I do; I am only anxious that the jury should know it as well."-SEWARD.

WICKED WIT.-One asked Sir John Millicent how he did so conform himself to the grave justices, his brothers, when they met. "Why, in faith," says he, "I have no way but to drink myself down to the capacity of the Bench."-L'ESTRANGE.

SIR MILES FLEETWOOD, RECORDER OF LONDON. He was of the Middle Temple. Was Recorder of London, when King James came into England. Made his harangue to the city of London :- "When I consider your wealth I do admire your wisdom, and when I consider your wisdom I do admire your wealth." It was a two-handed rhetorication, but the citizens took it in the best sense. He was a very severe hanger of highwaymen; so that the fraternity were resolved to make an example of his worship, which they executed in this manner :-They lay in wait for him not far from Tyburn, as he was to come from his house at Bucks; had a halter in readiness; brought him under the gallows, fastened the rope about his neck, his hands tied behind him, (and servants bound,) and then left him to the mercy of his horse, which he called Ball. So he cried, "Ho, Ball! Ho, Ball!" and it pleased God that his horse stood still, till somebody came along, which was half a quarter of an hour or

more. He ordered that his horse should be kept as long as he would live, which was so; he lived till 1646.-AUBREY.

CHARACTER OF LORD BACON.-One, though he be excellent, and the chief, is not to be imitated alone; for no imitator ever grew up to his author; likeness is always on this side truth. Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech, but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end.

My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place, or honours, but I have and do reverence him, for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest.-BEN JONSON.

IDLE FEARS.-One was saying that his great grandfather, and grandfather and father, died at sea; said another that heard him, "An I were as you, I would never come at sea." "Why," saith he, "where did your great grandfather and grandfather and father die?" He answered, "Where, but in their beds." Saith the other, "An I were as you, I would never come to bed."-BACON.

AUGUSTUS CÆSAR would say, "That he wondered that Alexander feared he should want work, having no more to conquer ; as if it were not as hard a matter to keep as to conquer." --BACON.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE.-The discipline at Christ's Hospital in my time was ultra Spartan; all domestic ties were to be put aside.

"Boy, the school is

"Boy," I remember Bowyer saying to me once when I was crying the first day of my return after the holidays. your father! Boy, the school is your mother! Boy, the school is your brother! the school is your sister! the school is your first cousin, and your second cousin, and all the rest of your relations! Let's have no more crying!"

No tongue can express good Mrs Bowyer. Val Le Grice and I were once going to be flogged for some domestic misdeed, and Bowyer was thundering away at us by way of prologue, when Mrs B. looked in, and said, "Flog them soundly, sir, I beg!" This saved us. Bowyer was so nettled at the interruption that he growled out, "Away, woman, away!" and we were let off.

I had one just flogging. When I was about thirteen, I went to a shoemaker, and begged him to take me as his apprentice. He being an honest man, immediately took me to Bowyer, (the Master of Christ's Hospital,) who got into a great rage, knocked me down, and even rudely pushed Crispin out of the room. Bowyer asked me why I had made myself such a fool? to which I answered, "That I had a great desire to be a shoemaker, and that I hated the thought of being a clergyman." "Why so?" said he. "Because, to tell you the truth, sir," said I, "I am an infidel!" For this, without more ado, Bowyer flogged me, wisely, as I think-soundly, as I know. Any whining or sermonising would have gratified my vanity, and confirmed me in my absurdity; as it was, I was laughed at, and got heartily ashamed of my folly.-COLERIDGE.

KEATS. A loose, slack, not well-dressed youth met Mr and myself in a lane near Highgate. knew him, and spoke.

It was Keats. He was introduced to me, and stayed a minute or So. After he had left us a little way, he came back, and said, "Let me carry away the memory, Coleridge, of having pressed your hand!" "There is death in that hand," I said to when Keats was gone; yet this was, I believe, before the con sumption showed itself distinctly.-COLERIDGE.-Table Talk.

1

The Great Dismal Swamp of America.

SIR C. LYELL. [WE extract the following account of one of the most remarkable natural objects in the world, from the "Travels in North America" of the distinguished geologist, Sir Charles Lyell-born 1797; died 1875.]

There are many swamps or morasses in this low, flat region, and one of the largest of these occurs between the towns of Norfolk and Weldon. We traversed several miles of its northern extremity on the railway, which is supported on piles. It bears the appropriate and very expressive name of the "Great Dismal," and is no less than forty miles in length from north to south, and twenty-five miles in its greatest width from east to west, the northern half being situated in Virginia, the southern in North Carolina. I observed that the water was obviously in motion in several places, and the morass had somewhat the appearance of a broad inundated river-plain, covered with all kinds of aquatic trees and shrubs, the soil being as black as in a peat-bog. The accumulation of vegetable matter going on here in a hot climate, over so vast an area, is a subject of such high geological interest, that I shall relate what I learnt of this singular morass. It is one enormous quagmire, soft and muddy, except where the surface is rendered partially firm by a covering of vegetables and their matted roots; yet, strange to say, instead of being lower than the level of the surrounding country, it is actually higher than nearly all the firm and dry land which encompasses it, and, to make the anomaly complete, in spite of its semi-fluid character, it is higher in the interior than towards its margin.

The only exceptions to both these statements is found on the eastern side, where, for the distance of about twelve or fifteen miles, the streams flow from slightly elevated but higher land, and supply all its abundant and overflowing water. Towards the north, the east, and the south, the waters flow from the swamp to different rivers, which give abundant evidence, by the rate of their

descent, that the Great Dismal is higher than the surrounding firm ground. This fact is also confirmed by the measurements made in levelling for the railway from Portsmouth to Suffolk, and for two canals cut through different parts of the morass, for the sake of obtaining timber. The railway itself, when traversing the Great Dismal, is literally higher than when on the land some miles dis tant on either side, and is six to seven feet higher than where it passes over dry ground near to Suffolk and Portsmouth. Upon the whole, the centre of the morass seems to lie more than twelve feet above the flat country round it. If the streams which now flow in from the west, had for ages been bringing down black fluid mire instead of water, over the firm subsoil, we might suppose the ground so inundated as to have acquired its present configuration. Some small ridges, however, of land must have existed in the original plain or basin, for these now rise like low islands in various places above the general surface. But the streams to the westward do not bring down liquid mire, and are not charged with any sediment. The soil of the swamp is formed of vegetable matter, usually without any admixture of earthy particles. We have here, in fact, a deposit of peat from ten to fifteen feet in thickness, in a latitude where, owing to the heat of the sun and length of the summer, no peat-mosses like those of Europe would be looked for under ordinary circumstances.

In countries like Scotland and Ireland, where the climate is damp, and the summer short and cool, the natural vegetation of one year does not rot away during the next in moist situations. If water flows into such land it is absorbed, and promotes the vigorous growth of mosses and other aquatic plants, and when they die, the same water arrests their putrefaction. But, as a general rule, no such accumulation of peat can take place in a country like that of Virginia, where the summer's heat causes annually as large a quantity of dead plants to decay as is equal in amount to the vegetable matter produced in one year.

There are many trees and shrubs in the region of the Pine Barrens, (and the same may be said of the United States generally,) which, like our willows, flourish luxuriantly in water. The